


Supernatural 3.15 review

by yourlibrarian



Series: Supernatural Reviews [18]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode Review, Episode: s03e15 Time Is On My Side, Gen, Nonfiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-26 19:00:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30110550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourlibrarian/pseuds/yourlibrarian
Summary: Originally posted May 9, 2008.
Series: Supernatural Reviews [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2202249
Kudos: 1
Collections: March Meta Matters Challenge





	Supernatural 3.15 review

As our next to the last episode, SPN 3.15 had elements in it that I really liked, and it left me very curious to see what the final episode is going to cover. Overall it seemed like one big morality play.

The episode starts with a dig about the idea of preserving the self, in this case the futility of trying to stay young. "All that work for 15 minutes." Of course Benton doesn't stay young, he just remains alive, but Dean, at least sees that as equally futile. I think one could say he sees Sam's plan as the equivalent of (continual) plastic surgery to stave off death. I am baffled by the nurse's reaction, however. Supposedly the victim had his liver removed by surgical incision. For what reason would this have freaked her out? I assume maggots were spilling out of him left and right, but you'd think the writers would have gleefully shown this.

In the next scene we see Sam and Dean up to what they may well have been up to for some time, exorcising demons and trying to find out what they can about Dean's deal. I liked the end of this scene for various reasons. The first is that Sam seems to be following Dean's cues, doing what Dean wants, in terms of the demon. As we discover though, Sam is setting Dean up for their hunt, promising him zombies and a distraction from the deal. (I am reminded of Buffy's line "Wish me monsters!"). What seems like a side hunt is really Sam’s main hunt all along –- he is continuing to doggedly pursue a solution to Dean's crisis. Sam may be less scary and empty than when Dean was dead, but he's just as relentless.

Dean's burial of the demon's host however bothered me in the same way that some similar events have bothered me in SPN. Is no one looking for these people? What about closure for the families of the missing? They may never know just what happened but at least they know for sure their loved one is dead. Similarly, the victim Sam rescued is never even mentioned after (presumably) Sam dropped her off at the hospital. Sam certainly has no reason to prolong his contact with her, he has what he wants to know. I was left, though, imagining what the unnamed woman must think about her whole experience, and her mysterious rescuer.

The interview with the coroner was fairly entertaining, as was Sam playing the little brother as he both maneuvers Dean into hunting Benton while at the same time trying to get him to lose his lunch. Poor Jensen. I'm starting to really feel for him and all the eating scenes. Speaking of meta issues though, I imagine this tendency to get an increasing number of scenes apart is much appreciated by the actors. At the same time I thought it was pretty balanced in this episode –- several scenes together, several apart.

Speaking of apart, we finally see several things come to a head in the same scene, as Dean gets the call from Bobby. For one, Sam has to lay his cards on the table and explain he isn't just being responsible in trying to wrap up the case before running after Bela (who has, as he points out, likely passed on the Colt anyway). Sam's trying to get around the deal by keeping Dean from dying of anything. Part of me wonders how long Sam has had this in the back of his mind. Surely after Mystery Spot, the endless possibilities of Dean's death have to have been cemented in his head. A bit of a lucky break for him then, that an enemy they know about and John has supposedly vanquished, turns out to be around for an inquisition. And apparently Benton is going through a number of body part failures at the same time, given the string of abductions and murders.

Anyway, convenient resurfacing aside, Sam lays his cards on the table, and Dean decides he has limits after all. In fact, he has quite a lot of them. He doesn't want to live forever because Sam might die and he'd be alone. He doesn't want Sam to live forever because…well, I'm not sure really. You'd think he'd be behind that idea since all this started with the need to keep Sam alive. Later he doesn't kill Bela because, well, who knows. He says it's because he realized her end is coming soon anyway, but if so that was a convenient excuse. And finally he tells Sam at the end that he doesn't want to be a monster. Only, if Ruby is to be believed, he'll become one anyway. So for someone who told Sam he did want to be saved and didn't want to go to hell, and last week confessed how frightened he was, he's sure a whole lot pickier about that process than Sam is.

Sam, for his part, seems to me pretty clearly the same Sam who we saw in the Mystery Spot AU. As cold as that Sam had become, "Bobby" was still able to get to him. And Dean is able to get to him here. Supposedly. I notice Benton is still alive, and in any case, what happened to his journal? I really don't believe Sam was ready to throw in the towel. He was, of course, ready to do what he could to save the woman Benton had kidnapped, as well as prevent the deaths of other people whereas Dean was ready to abandon them to pursue a slim hope of helping himself. (As Sam pointed out, what did Dean hope to do with the Colt anyway?) However I wouldn't have put it past Sam to kill the victims if needed to keep Dean alive, nor would he have been stopped, I think, if the ritual did involve black magic or anything hinky (in fact we only have Sam's word that it didn't). And Sam was willing to risk them being separated if it meant he might be able to save Dean permanently. So while at the beginning of the episode, he seems to be following Dean's lead, and at the end he does the same as the two heap dirt on the coffin, I think his statement to Dean "How are you going to stop me?" is a pretty telling one. I'm still guessing that's going to be the key issue in the last episode. I don’t think, in the final gasp, Dean is going to have any say in what Sam does. I did think though, it was an interesting scene to watch, as each decides he’s going to pursue his own lead. We know Sam has had no problem confronting John, but he does have difficulty saying no to Dean. In fact I think this difficulty has grown with each passing season.

I also thought it was interesting how, when Dean and Sam had the final discussion about Benton and Dean said it was a simple issue -- human or monster -- that when Sam followed him back to Benton, he remained half-hidden behind the curtains. I couldn't help thinking that it was commenting on what Sam's becoming. Dean and Benton, human and monster, and Sam a bit of both in the shadows. What I also liked was the way Sam was solicitous of the victim's pain when he rescued her, telling her to watch her head as he put her in the car, etc. That may have simply been JP, but I like how it reflected Sam as still empathetic and kind, while at the same time becoming someone whose morality is increasingly tenuous. What I'm curious about is how Sam sees himself. Does he think he's going "darkside"? Has he simply accepted that long ago as a necessary outcome of what he has to do?

At the same time Dean seems the inherently crueler person. His decision with Bela is a case in point. He told Sam he couldn't kill her, but it seemed to be the sight of the devil's shoestring that stopped him. He realized she would die due to a deal as well. Wouldn't it be kinder and more sensible to kill her himself? He even knew she’d be after them. I guess he did want her to suffer, and to leave himself clean of her death. At the same time they bury Benton alive, for all eternity. I wondered if Sam's reluctance was both due to the fact that he still wanted Benton's knowledge as well as being less than sanguine about Benton's fate. I find it completely fascinating how each seems to have no stomach for certain things (which makes me look at Dean's eating scene in a different way).

Dean might also have been thinking of Evan's case in Crossroads, where they really did save him. He didn't know until the end that Lilith held both Bela's and his contracts. He has been assuming (rightly it seems) that his contract is somehow special and more valued than the general one and thus no one's going to let it go easily. Although as I think about it, unless Dean didn't believe that Bela killed her parents in cold blood, would he have wanted to help her? He was ready to write her off in Red Sky, it was Sam who stepped in. And to Dean, her action would be unimaginable. Whereas I think, in the end, he empathized with Evan. He would do the same thing himself before long.

I'm curious about Dean's red herring trip. I enjoyed his scenes with Rufus. One thing you can say for SPN is that they often cast some good guest stars who create memorable characters within a single episode. I don't know if we'll be seeing Rufus again, but his discussion with Dean about what little he had to look forward to, even if he lived, was great. I also suspect Dean's never really thought about it. For one, he isn't the kind to be introspective anyway. For another, I'm sure he figured he would go down fighting somewhere along the line before he ever got to Rufus' age. And since the deal, he's been looking an ugly future in the face anyway. By comparison, Rufus' existence seems a pretty good choice. But then all of this seems to be about making Dean confront what he really wants for his future. He didn't seem to find this option particularly appealing.

I'm guessing from what we saw with Bela then, that her using Rufus to draw Dean out, was her effort to meet Lilith’s demand. I'd guessed that Bela's theft of the Colt had to do with Lilith but not why. I'd also guessed Bela's reasons for killing the family member implied in Red Sky, so I was a little disappointed that they didn't come up with something less cliche. That Bela had made a deal of her own was unexpected, but I did like how much that explained about her personality. No wonder she's so unconcerned about other people. For one, she wouldn't have had much belief in their innate goodness to start with. But given that she's been looking at her own death sentence for 10 years (and will be dying at 24), how much has she had to live for? 

I'm also going to guess that all her work with mystical objects has less to do with making money (which she already had, and could only use for so long anyway) as searching for a way to break her own deal. And she's had no luck. I am, however, less than impressed with the demon she made a deal with –- Bela could have cut a brake line herself. Why have a demon involved at all if she's going to bear the brunt of suspicion to start with? And really, what does she think she’s going to face in hell? I’m guessing all she bought herself was a 10 year break from being molested and she could have gotten away in a few years anyway. Not a wise choice any way you look at it. (I thought it was also notable that the kiss is apparently not a requirement to seal a deal –- either that or the writers were too squeamish to cast a boy her age or have the girls kiss.) The deal also explains her attitude towards hunters. I'm guessing she didn't bother going to them because she already knew they couldn't (or wouldn't) help her. After all, Dean was less than charitable towards the deal makers in Crossroads. It was Sam who insisted they help. And second, she must see their actions as fairly futile considering the larger picture. As with Henriksen, I think Bela's story got spun out too quickly, it's a waste of the character. Maybe before the strike they'd been planning on spending an episode on her story and it just got compressed here, who knows? But I do think that Bela's appearance at the end of the episode, where she's gone to the motel to shoot Sam and Dean, is also setting up the final episode, and how ruthless Sam is willing to be to save Dean.

Random Comments: I thought Dean's finding Sam was awfully fortuitous. I'm guessing for time reasons he went straight to the cabin, assuming that's where Sam might be. However Sam had the maps. Lucky guess on his part, especially finding it in the dark. I realize Sam had something to go on –- woods near a stream -- but you'd think that would describe a pretty large area. And, Sam mentioned various hunting cabins, Dean wouldn't have known which one and would have had to search all of them, and according to the map some weren't all that close to one another. I would have preferred it if Sam had found a way to free himself, and was in the midst of getting what he wanted from Benton when Dean showed up.

Why did Rufus show Dean Bela's file? Did that come from Bela or from Rufus? Did she want Dean to understand her at the end? She had hoped to get Sam but would have killed both, and Dean wouldn't have cared about her motives anyway if Sam were dead. Why do it? I'm going with the idea that Rufus got the file the way he told Dean, and showed it to him because he knew it was a setup and this was a way of betraying Bela. After all, he told Dean not to go after her.

I love the way they have Sam locking the rental cars every time he gets out.

Nice adaptation of the urban legend about organ theft. I think the way they integrated this into the deal storyline was well done.

Benton was in Erie, PA, and Rufus is in Canan, VT. That’s 10 hours of driving. In general I’m trying to place when things happened in this episode. I’m guessing they were in their second day in Erie when Dean left. They had been planning to go out to the cabin, and when Sam does so, it’s daytime. So I’ll guess it was still early in the morning when Bobby called. I’ll also assume Sam checked all the cabins on the map before he found Benton’s, and that it was nightfall by the time he got back to town. Dean would have just arrived in VT when Sam got back from his outing, even though it’s clearly early in the day when he sees Rufus. Yet Dean has been to see Rufus, has met up with Bela and is (presumably) almost back in Erie when he calls Sam. So I’m going to assume that there’s actually a whole day we didn’t see, of Dean driving and Sam searching. Maybe it took him 2 days to find the right cabin, and Dean arrived back at midnight of the second day. Still awfully lucky he hit the correct cabin right away.


End file.
